The West Coast’s largest showing of Cuban Poster art, an exhibit called “One Struggle, Two Communities,” is underway at the Berkeley Art Center, highlighting the release of a new book that chronicles the island nation’s rich history of cultural and political posters.
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“When the sixties finally ended in Berkeley, sometime around 1994, the only thing left standing from that bygone era was the Cheese Board. Odd that a time and place so thoroughly associated with outrage and rebellion should all melt down into 400 or so tasty blobs of Camembert, Port Salut, and Bleu des Causses. Those of us old enough to remember its first tiny storefront have watched fads in politics, haircuts, nose rings and bread dough come and go, but the Cheese Board stands alone.”
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Berkeley school officials tempered optimism about skyrocketing test scores for Berkeley High School students reported in the Daily Planet (“BHS Student Test Scores Soar,” Oct. 14-16) with cautions that the upbeat numbers failed to take into account differing testing populations and the worrisome stagnation of some groups of students.
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Critics of former Berkeley Mayor Shirley Dean used to say that under her chairmanship, Berkeley City Council meetings used to bog down under the endless partisan bickering until the late hours of the night.
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Workers at the Claremont Hotel were joined by scores of supporters Wednesday as they rallied in front of the resort to dramatize their long-running battle to force the Claremont to negotiate new contracts for workers throughout the resort.
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Usually when folks speak of being strong supporters of labor I discern an echo of the mantras “I’m a uniter, not a divider,” and “fair and balanced reporting.” With supporters like that, who needs enemies? The Berkeley Budget Oversight Committee’s analysis, though expansive, is shallow and misleading. Several of the statements are factually inaccurate or thinly veiled attacks on labor, charities, and the less privileged.
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A drug known as “soma” is making a dangerous resurgence among Asian Pacific Americans, according to Michael Kinoshita, manager of Wellness Programs at the Asian American Recovery Services (AARS) in San Francisco.
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Governor-elect Schwarzenegger is publicly floating the idea that—to take quick advantage of his electoral popularity while it lasts—he is considering initiating a November, 2004 referendum to ask the voters to put a constitutional cap on state spending. And isn’t that a chilling reminder of the first days of the Jerry Brown era in Oakland?
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Editorial

Went to church again last night, for the second time this fall. Following Rev. Al Sharpton at Allen Temple Baptist Church on the revival circuit, this time the preacher was Rev. Molly Ivins, appearing at Berkeley’s First Congregational under the auspices of Cody’s Books to preach about her latest, “Bushwhacked.” The choir was all there to shout hallelujah—Berkeleyans of all descriptions who couldn’t be counted on to have a civil conversation at a commission meeting in the North Berkeley Senior Center, but who do realize that politics stops at the water’s edge. The water’s edge, in this case, is the easily predictable Bush-Schwarzenegger deal to carve up California and feed it to the corporations, especially the energy czars and the lumber barons. (Entrail readers on the Internet, notably Greg Palast, have seen the auguries in Arnie’s meeting with Enron honchos a couple of years ago.) And on the other shore, we’re on the edge of the deep muddy that is the Iraq occupation.
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